A/N Okay. Another first for me. Um. Yeah. I hope it came out alright.
I woke and dressed, and made my way down to the lobby and the small breakfast setup. I brewed myself a cup and was picking at the fruit tray when Trudy found me there and brought a message from Pam. She and Eric had left early to wrap up her part in things and she'd be leaving this afternoon to go back to Seattle, and that was it for the message. I thanked Marcia and after assuring her I needed nothing more she left me to finish my solitary breakfast.
It was the first day since I'd arrived that I actually had no plan. Returning to the room I pulled out some paper and tried to make one, less for the day and more for life in general. Open the house, get my stuff. I'd need to book a flight to Seattle and back, and arrange for the packing and shipping. I would need a moving company for that. I would need a car in Bon Temps and to get back and forth from the city. I didn't exactly have the budget for anything fancy. I could find something serviceable. Maybe Jason knew of one. That would be preferred, but I could probably check the internet listings as well. With the water and electric set, the house was probably ready to move in, but for an airing. I did need a new bed. I hop up and went and pulled the sheets up as I had promised myself I would, and made a note of the brand and model of the mattress.
I spent most of the morning making notes and I actually ended up with a fairly short list of things I needed to do to make the move back here. I was having a bit of back and forth about whether or not I wanted to go back to the parish school district. I'd left my classes at the winter term break, so the interruption had been minimal. Even though I'd been assured I'd be welcome back, I felt like a flibbertigibbet with my coming and going so quickly. I sighed to myself, second guessing yet again. Would it really be terrible to be settled and boring in Bon Temps? Maybe I could marry one of Jason's buddies, and teach at my old school, and have a mess of babies, and cook Sunday dinners. It would be a good life. I found myself wishing I wanted it.
I found webpage showing all the schools in the area and bookmarked it. I'd go right down the list and send my credentials to every one. Well, most of them, anyway. Probably not the all boys Catholic schools, but the rest of them. I had started to write up a letter in the standard form, using what I'd sent to Peterson as a template when Pam phoned asking if I was free for lunch before she left. I agreed and went to meet her downstairs. I wasn't really sure if I was allowed to talk to her about what I'd told Eric last night. I honestly hoped it wouldn't come up, because I really hadn't enjoyed my glimpse into corporate intrigues. It had stressed me out considerably. I suppose this is why Eric has a whole separate businessman persona. It must be something of a wall one has to build if they deal with this kind of thing all the time.
Pam looked haggard. I assumed she hadn't gotten much beauty sleep last night. I'm sure Eric was in fine fiddle wherever he was, as well.
"I've got your itinerary here," she said, handing me a pink folder as she tucked a handful of others into her brief case. My eyebrows went up but she pressed right on. "Let's go around the corner, I need something to drink before I fly."
I followed her outside and we crossed the road and I followed in her wake as she directed us a few streets over to a quiet pub. We sat at the bar and she ordered a martini and I, a coke, and we started browsing the lunch menu. A lot of it was pretty fancy for bar food. I ordered a burger. She got onion rings and hot wings and some sort of froufrou variation of a hot roast beef sandwich. Pam was generally a member of the salad set, but I'd seen this before.
"You and Eric still having your tiff, then?" I ask her.
"No, it's forgotten. Apparently I still have you to blame for his foul mood today though."
For half a second I wonder if he told her about our kiss, wondering if that accounted for his bad mood. Maybe he regretted it? Or maybe he was annoyed I'd interrupted it for something more important? Something more important. Right. She means the Tara thing, of course.
"I'm sorry about that, Pam. I thought it was the right thing, to tell him."
"Of course it was Sookie, don't be an idiot. It's very important that we learned of this now, before any damage is actually done."
"Okay then," I say. I don't really want to talk about it. I flip open the pink folder and on top of a short stack of papers is a plane ticket. "Uh, Pam?"
She takes a long pull from her martini before answering, "Yes?"
"What itinerary?"
"For next week. I have Eric's here, and then Bill's and Lorena's, for that little excursion. With the time change I'll be back at the Seattle building before they leave for the day. I should be able to catch them. They're flying out late, late on Sunday night. Sookie, I found the best hotel for them, let me show you the pictures online," she starts fishing around for her phone, makes a few quick navigations and thrusts it at me.
I'm still a little bit hung up on having an itinerary I wasn't aware of, but I take it from her anyway. I'm looking at photos of a dingy motel room. It's all deteriorating seventies-style décor in hideous olive and burnt orange hues. "Did you get to the one with the stain?" she asks. I smirk in response, handing her phone back. I've seen enough to get the gist.
"Should be funny," I say. I don't really agree. I'm indifferent at best. It's Eric's joke, and I neither asked him nor condoned it. "Why do I need an itinerary?"
"You two are flying out of here on Sunday afternoon. Your ticket back is open ended. I'm not sure how long you are going to need to pack your things. Lorena and Bill are gone through Friday. I've got your rental car in there, and I went ahead and pulled up three movers that will pickup and ship. There's also one that will pack, if you want that. I think you just put stickers on everything and they come do it. You have a hotel room too. Just a regular room though, it's all they had. They needed a definite time, so I said three nights. If you're shorter just check out, if you're longer, you'll need to just let them know." I'm speechless.
"Why do I have a hotel?" I finally manage. I'm floored, but it's the only thing I can think of.
"Sookie, you're not sleeping in that bad."
"There's a guest room," I say, in general defiance.
"Sookie, no." She rolls her eyes at me, then gives a gasp of elation as her wings and rings arrive. She is clapping her fingertips together daintily with a big smile. She pushes the baskets toward me as if to share, and then proceeds to eat most of them herself. I flip through my paperwork. I have to appreciate Pam's thoroughness, but I'm still a little pensive.
"Pam, who do I pay for all this? Just when I check in or out?"
"What?" she asks, after swallowing hard on a mouth full of onion ring. "I booked it through corporate. It's paid for."
"Pam, I don't work there."
"Mm."
"Pam?" She's still eating, but I'm impatient.
"I fudged a little bit. I called down to my friend Tony in human resources. I don't know if you remember him from the picnic last summer? He was there with his partner and the three Asian toddlers?" I remembered. Those kids were adorable and I hadn't wanted to put them down. I gave her a nod. "Okay. So you two didn't claim your whole moving allowance. So I just got him to reopen the file and I sent him all the billing stuff."
"Wait, moving allowance?"
"Right. Area Five paid the costs of your move, but you guys didn't need all that we allotted for you, so we're just using the leftover to move you back. It's on the level, more or less. Technically it's past the deadline for turning in the receipts, but he can make exceptions at his discretion, and he did for this, so you're good."
"Um, but...Bill and I paid for the move ourselves."
She stared at me like I had two heads.
"We split it all," I continue.
"He claimed the expenses, Sookie. I don't know why he let you pay, it was being paid for." At least she has stopped eating. I can feel the fallen expression on my face. I bite at the inside of my lip.
"It's just one more reason it's good you left him."
I sighed. She's right, that's really the only way I can look at it. I try to bring myself out of it. "Just don't tell me he's had a housing allowance all along or something next," I laugh weakly.
She looks at me, her eyebrows furrowing. "Uhm?"
"What? Seriously?"
Pam gives a slight nod before turning back to the bar and rapping sharply on it to get the bartender's attention.
"Seriously?" I ask again, in total disbelief.
Once she caught the barman's eye, she held up her glass to him. "We're going to need at least three more of these, pronto."
I was reeling again, mentally, although thanks to the two martinis I was a little wobbly in my barstool as well. Pam tried a couple of times to lighten my mood but it didn't take. I thanked her for the effort, but I was feeling like a prized idiot. There was no amount of mildewed tile grout or coin operated vibrating beds at the Bungalo Chalet Inn that was going to abate that. It was petty and small. One bad night for him in exchange for two years of deception didn't seem fair. If they even stayed there. They'd probably just find the nearest Holiday Inn or something when they saw the place. I realized I want Tara to be right about bad things coming to bad people. She's not right though.
"Thanks for getting all of this squared away Pam," I tell her as I stir from my sour thoughts.
"You can owe me one. Take me to your next lunch with the sorority sisters and point out the experimenters," she grins. I give her a half-hearted laugh in return and promise that I would. I paid for our lunch and our drinks and we head back so she can drop off Eric's ticket, finish packing, and get to the airport. I bid her goodbye in the elevator. I realize only then that I might not see her for a while since they're still based in Seattle. There's still the phone, I suppose. I sure needed something else to feel gloomy about, huh?
"Keep in touch," I offer, and she just clucks at me, rolling her eyes. She's right, we've had enough of the heartfelt this trip. I'll give her a call next week if I don't hear from her before then.
I mope back to my room and checking my phone as I go. Nothing. I'm debating calling Bill to confront him about the rent and the moving expenses. It takes me three tries to get the key card to work in the door. I wander out to the balcony since I haven't been out there yet. It's lovely. There are two chaise lounges out there and I lay down on one and close my eyes to the sun. I don't know what my response would have been if I had known that the costs were covered all along. Maybe gotten a bigger place? Maybe I just would have taken all the utilities instead? Maybe I wouldn't have moved in at all. Maybe I would have kept my own place. I'd wanted to pay my own way. I was excited and proud to be able to. I had my first real job and my first real income that wasn't in the form of fistfuls of single dollars from tips from my waitressing. The ladies at my bank even stopped sneering at me. They had used to assume I was a stripper. It was a little funny since I had known a couple of girls that actually were in school. They made more money than bank tellers. Go ahead and judge, ya mean old bags. Tscha.
I'd loved the idea of he and I doing it together though. Building a life together, being a team. I knew he had more in the bank than me, literally millions more, but that hadn't seemed real to me. Day to day there'd been equality. We'd had a tiny place in Uptown. Just one bedroom and the kitchen was barely big enough to turn around, but the address was good. There was even a tiny terrace off the bedroom. It wasn't big enough to put a chair on but it was nice to throw open the doors when the weather was good. He'd built little flower boxes for me to put out there when we'd moved in. I'd planted lilies and tulips. It was sweet it had been home.
I struggle with that a bit. Right now I want to hate that tiny apartment and remember it for the bitter house of lies it apparently was, but I just can't. I was the silly girl. It had all meant so much to me. I realize now that not a single thing in our life, right down to me, had been enough for him. His - and it was most definitely his, not our - condo in Seattle is sleek and modern and cold. I'd been certain I could make us fit, make it home. As it turns out, nope.
I wanted to be able to enjoy the sun but I felt restless and useless. I called Jason.
"Hey brother, you got a minute?" I ask when he answers.
"Just a few," he answers. "The boys are just packing up a job here and we've got another to get to." He's still at work.
"Well, turns out my faerie godmother had another present up her sleeve."
"'That that Lafayette?" he asks, sounding nervous. It makes me smile a real, true smile. We'd had a serious talk about his bass-ackwards views on 'the gays' a while back. He was trying, bless his heart, but I suppose Rome wasn't built in a day.
"No Jas, not Lafayette. My friend down here did me an itinerary when she was scheduling her boss's. Bill's going to be out of town next week so I'm taking the chance to head back there and get my stuff."
"And he ain't gonna be there?" he asks warily.
"No sir, he'll be in Arkansas."
"When're you gonna be here then? I saw Mitch Jacobs down at the bar last night. Said he'd been over to tend to the well yesterday and it's lookin' fine. Porch light came on last night too."
"That's good news. It's looking like Tuesday or Wednesday maybe. I guess I don't have a lot to pack up, but I've got a few other things I want to tend to."
"You still needing to stay here then?"
"It's shaping up like I can go straight to Gran's," I pause. "I wouldn't say no to you cooking me dinner when I get in though."
"I think I could grill up some steaks," he says, thoughtful. "Maybe get some salad from the store." He means macaroni and potato and egg. Leafy greens are what food eats.
"I'm hungry already. Think you can get by this weekend and open some windows for a while?"
"Shouldn't be a problem. You talk to the asshole yet?"
"He tricked my new number out of a friend up there. He called last night but I hung up."
"Good."
"I'll keep you posted," I say. "Say hi to Crystal."
"Appreciate it, and will do."
"Love you."
"Bye Sook."
I disconnect but keep the phone cradled in my hands. I was looking forward to seeing him. Speaking of Lafayette reminds me that I need to call him and beg some help with the packing. It was probably still too early there, though. I decide it's time to stop thinking for a while so I duck inside to get a book then come back out. I followed my story with interest as the afternoon wore on. Gwyndolyn was conflicted about her brash but loyal husband and her romantic but gambling-prone French tutor. It still seemed like it could go either way. Strong hands and powerful arms versus the flowing locks and lascivious whispers. Quite the conundrum.
As the rush hour came the street noise that filtered up got too distracting and the light too dim to read by. I stood and stretched, leaning on the railing looking up and down the street. The hotel seemed to be bustling down below. I saw half a dozen cars come and go while I watched. I must be keeping odd hours, as I'd hardly seen the other guests. A car carrying Eric pulled up, and I felt mischievous as I watched him pace along the sidewalk. He seemed to be finishing a phone call. My own phone rang a moment later and for some reason I was surprised that it was him.
"Hey Sookie. I've just got back to the hotel," he opens.
"I know!" I exclaim. I watch his tiny head whip around, searching. "Look up," I tell him, and then lean out to give an exaggerated wave so he can notice me way up here. He waves back. Ha. For once he's not the tallest man in the room. Well, for a given value of room. This is probably the closest I'll ever come to seeing that scenario, regardless.
Pulling the phone back to my ear I hear him say, "You're really running with this spy thing, huh?" and it pulls me up short immediately. Yup that's me. Sookie the inadvertent corporate spy.
"Oh," I say simply, and instinctively pull back from his view and move back inside the room.
"I was joking Sookie," he says and after a pause, "I'm coming up." He hangs up and I set my phone down and go to retrieve my book and close the doors to the outside. I straighten myself out in the mirror and hastily snatch the plastic bag full of my clean undergarments off the front table and toss it unceremoniously into the bedroom just as the knock on the door comes. He is already halfway out of his tie when he walks in and take up 'his spot' on the couch again. I fold my arms around myself and lean against the wall as I watch him spread his arms out and throw his head back. About a minute has gone by when he lifts his head.
"Did I need to start with 'honey I'm home,' to get you to ask how my day was?" he asks.
"Was it horrible?" I reply quickly, biting down on my lip. I feel my forehead crease.
"It was interesting," he says, staring at me. "Come sit down." He pats the couch again.
I go and sit down next to him facing forward. I'm pretty nervous to hear about the fallout. I kind of do want to hear it, but I don't at the same time, I don't want to hear anything I oughtn't to know. It's not a position I am eager to find myself in again, hopefully ever, but let alone so soon. Yesterday was kind of terrible, for that part of it. If he's able to reassure me at all though, I want to hear it, and if I need to expect the worst, well, I better know it. He angles himself toward me and begins, "First of all, you don't need to worry about any legal problems. I met with my own lawyer this morning, and he assures me that you are clear of any wrongdoing."
I breathed a genuine sigh of relief at that.
"Secondly, when I brought the information to Sophie Ann I cited an anonymous source just as you did, so there's been no mention of you, nor your friend Tara, to anyone but Pam and myself."
I gasped. "But I didn't tell you it was Tara!" My voice went high and airy.
"You didn't," he confirmed. "But you did tell me you were having lunch with friends from your sorority, and we have their employee roster. Considering their New Orleans office is small right now it wasn't terribly difficult to match up Tara Thornton, especially given social networking. Pam found her in less than half an hour, albeit in the first place we looked."
I shook my head. It never occurred to me he could do that.
"I had to know who her boss was. It's the only way to determine which board members have been meeting with him. It's not Jade, by the way." I just stared at him, my distress written all over my face. "I'm sorry, Sookie, but you need to not worry. I have this in hand," he states with confidence.
"But why couldn't they just as easily know that I'm the source as you knew it was Tara? I mean I'm staying here."
"That's not even something that would come to Sophie Ann's attention. I've given her enough that she's not suspicious and I do not expect her to press the issue."
"What did you say?"
"I may have hinted that I spent some time with an amorous and unnamed secretary."
"And she would buy that?"
"Easily."
"Oh," I say, coming up short again. 'Easily' threw me a bit.
"So what do we have planned for this weekend?" he asks. He leans in to catch a lock of my hair between his fingers and begins to twirl them around it.
"I haven't...what, so that's it?" I ask, pulling my hair away from him.
"That's it. For you, anyway. We have some decisions to make on our end," he says, sitting back.
"And nothing's going to happen to me or to Tara," I confirm.
"Well, not to you. If ultimately we do proceed with the merger, she is likely to be downsized." I'm appalled. "She's unethical and apparently vindictive, though the latter is a lesser concern. It's a dangerous combination however. She'd get a severance package." He finishes lightly, then pauses, measuring my expression again. "This is all hypothetical, and months off besides."
I fold my hands in my lap and cross my ankles and I can feel a little frown settle on my face, and I don't bother trying to correct it. Essentially, Tara was a dead woman walking and she doesn't even know it. At the same time though, she is the one who disclosed what should have been secret. But then at the same, same time, I am the one who did such a lousy job at concealing her identity that Eric and Pam had sussed her out in twenty minutes.
"So I got my friend future-fired," I finally settle on.
"She got herself future, and hypothetically, fired," he says.
"But you benefit from her action."
"Yes, but I could never trust that she wouldn't be as loose-lipped in the future. Do you trust her with your secrets?" he asks. He knows the answer to this. I don't have to say anything. He's got me here. After waiting long enough to punctuate the fact that I can't refute him he simply finishes, "So why should I?"
"It still sucks," I say. That is indeed the best I've got.
"For her, yes."
"For me too, I feel responsible."
"You shouldn't. As I recall, you said she'd known about this for months. All the while you were with Bill, and his livelihood and interests should have been considered an extension of yours, yes? But she had no compunction about her part in her company's doings then, which ultimately would have hurt you." He pauses again for a moment before finishing, "So why would you beat yourself up on her behalf now?"
"Because she's my friend," I argue.
"She's not a very good one."
I take a long moment trying to muster an argument, but I really don't have one. She's not a good friend, and that's just the way of it. It's not really his place to say that, but he's right. "Maybe not then," I allow. "But I don't need to feel pleased about my part in her misfortune."
"Future and hypothetical misfortune," he corrects.
"Yes, nor that neither," I sulk.
"May we move on?" he asks. I sit back a bit and flick my wrist to indicate he may if he wants.
He is inching back a bit closer to me again and repeats his question about weekend plans.
"Well apparently I'm travelling on Sunday," I say. Yup, I'm about to get snitty with him for doing me the favour.
"What a coincidence," he repeats, ignoring my tone. "I think we even have the same seats." He's bent his head toward me now, close enough that he's gone from my peripheral vision. I'm pretty sure if I turn to look at him directly, we will be nose to nose. I can feel him breathing in my hair and his mouth is right next to my ear when he asks, "Does that mean we get to snuggle again?"
"Maybe," I say, relaxing just a bit. "Maybe if you're being you." The man is insidious.
"I'm always me," he answers. He just kissed my neck. "You smell warm," he says.
"I was out in the sun today," I murmur. I feel warm, too.
"Alright," he says. Wait, where are you going? He's pulled away and is standing up, but he grabs my hand and pulls me up after him.
"You look great, but I need to change," he says.
"Where are we going?" I ask.
"Out. About. I don't know. I thought we'd go wander around the French Quarter and see what there is to see," he pauses. "Do you dance?"
"I do," I smile up at him.
"Good, then our options are wide open." That they are sir. That they are.
"I'll be back in a few minutes then. Find a sweater or something, it's supposed to cool off." I nod and he heads to leave. I notice that he's left his tie again so I grab it and hold it out for him.
"Tie!" I call out.
He turns back and gives me a wink. "I'll get it later." And he's gone. Strategic. I'm grinning while I duck into the bathroom to freshen up my makeup.
He really does take only a few minutes. He must have hurried. He's back in jeans and a white shirt and another well-tailored dark jacket. He's left his hair pulled back. Mmm. "So what are your plans for the weekend," I ask, once we're headed back downstairs. "Do you have to work tomorrow?"
"I don't work on weekends," he says quickly. He seems to consider that but then amends, "Sometimes things like that dinner, or some other function, but not if I can help it. I don't 'go in on Saturdays'," he finishes.
"That's nice then," I agree. It is nice, if he gives himself a proper break every week. His work seemed pretty stressful, so it was good that he took the time to decompress. Bill didn't, a lot of the time. He was always going in on Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays too, on the weekends we stayed in town. Maybe he actually hadn't been going into work at all. I gave myself a sad little sigh, feeling my stupidity yet again. He heard it and looked at me with an odd expression. I got a bit embarrassed at the idea that he could guess what was going through my mind.
"Well, maybe we could go to the park or something tomorrow?" I offer. I don't want to linger on the subject of Bill, spoken or unspoken.
"We could do that," he agrees. His tone implies that he's acknowledging it as an option, rather than committing to the plan just yet.
He's been walking a bit too fast again, but finally seems to take notice now that the street is a little less crowded. He breaks his stride a bit so we're walking more companionably. I give him a little grin in thanks when he looks down at me. "Where would you normally be tomorrow?"
"Home," he says simply. "Maybe go to the gym or lunch, come home and read a book or watch a movie," he stops to consider, "Maybe go out for the night."
"That sounds fine too," I hedge. I don't really want to sit around for another day. I've spent enough time with my own thoughts this week. I could find something to do if he just wanted to veg out all day. "Is that what you and Pam would have done here, if she didn't have to go home early?" I ask.
"We would have flown back after work," he says. I must have made a little sound because he looks down and catches my concerned expression. He was giving up his weekend for me on top of everything else he'd already done. "But this works out better," he says quickly. "Otherwise I'd have to drive to Sea-Tac on Sunday to meet you off the plane and make sure you don't balk at the hotel or try to go back to your house before Bill's gone," he offers offhandedly. "Doing it this way saves me a trip," he grins.
"Thank you Eric," I say with feeling. I feel like I've said that often and I tell him so. "I don't even know why you're doing all this. It's so far and away beyond a casual flirt so don't even try to laugh it off," I add knowingly. I'm sure he's about to cut in with his 'ulterior motives' crap, but he's been good to me well beyond that this week. The genius plumbers were going to be resigned to second billing in my Sunday prayers. Who'd'a thunk it? Thank God for Eric Northman.
He reaches down to take my hand and give it a little squeeze and then keeps holding it. We make our way over to Bourbon Street and it's quite busy with tourists and the dinner crowd. Our conversation flows easily as there's so much to catch our attention here. Every once in a while he has to pull me into himself so we can edge around or out of the way of other pedestrians, and I find myself not minding it a bit. I'm actually slightly disappointed when he finds a restaurant for dinner. We're seated across from each other at a tiny table, and it's cosy, but not nearly as cosy as his hand on my hip and my back pulled against his chest had been when we scooted past those Floridian grandmas a few minutes ago. So we settled into talking about our upcoming weeks, and I told him my plans as far as staying in Bon Temps until I had reason to come down for interviews and then finding a place down here. He agreed it was prudent.
He was predicting he'd be swamped next week and while he offered to come by and help me pack on Monday night it was buffered by the secondary offer to just "send someone," to instead. I didn't really like the idea of him being around while I was packing up my life with Bill at all, so I was glad he didn't seem determined. I declined politely, assuring him that I could manage on my own if I had to but that I expected Lafayette to help. I told him all about Laf, and he laughed along, particularly when it came to our hijinks with Amelia back in school. I learned that the only thing he'd joined back in school was the fencing team. I joked that he should have a handicap because he was such a big target, and he said seriously that this is what had spurred him to become truly good at it, and that he still found time to practice now and again. I wondered briefly about what kind of school he'd gone to growing up that had a fencing team. Bon Temps High School barely had the budget to support girl's volleyball. We'd had a lot of bake sales.
After dinner we walked again, leaving some of the tourist crowd behind and drifting in and out of a few bars that had live music going. I'd filled my quota with my two martini lunch with Pam, so I kept getting bottled waters. He teased me that I should fill one of those huge flask things with the bendy straws, to cut down on the waste. I pointed out that business travellers have no ground to stand on when it comes to their carbon footprint and he conceded with a touché, but made a point of carrying my next empty bottle until we found a recycling bin.
We did get in a bit of dancing, and he totally surprised me by being good, even with the zydeco steps. A dark man, almost as tall as Eric, cut in on us at one point, twirling me away. Eric just laughed with a little bow as we went and then shimmied off with the other guy's partner. The other couple was much better than us and I was laughing and out of breath for trying to keep up. When the song was up he found me instantly and caught me up in his arms while I applauded the band along with the rest of the crowd. I leaned back against him, totally ignoring the fact that I was sweaty. I felt light. "I had no idea you were fun," I said, craning my neck up to look at him.
"Sometimes," he agreed, and squeezed me a bit tighter.
"Well I know I've been doing those steps since I was a kid on the playground after church, but where did you learn all that?" I asked him when we'd left the dance hall. After we'd cooled off, I was indeed getting a little too cool. I was all too grateful that he'd kept an arm wrapped around me even though I'd put my cardigan sweater back on.
"We had playgrounds," he says, but I glance at him to let him know that this explanation was unsatisfactory.
"It's true, I did grow up down here in part," he says. "But my proper instruction came a bit later in life," he admits. "Ex-girlfriend." He's not elaborating any further.
"Hm," I say.
"Hm?" he emphasizes back, challenging my response.
"Yup," I say, ignoring the unspoken rest of it. I'd been tempted to make a remark about his many ex-girlfriends. Since I'd known him through Bill, practically every time I'd seen him he'd had a different version of Escort in tow. Frankly it was no wonder, if what I'd been seeing is the kind of charm he laid down for everyone. I mean, I was smitten and a week ago I would have sworn I hated his stupid face. So, I swallowed back my snark, deciding not to ruin the moment. Someone else was going to take care of that forthwith.
I got a little jolt as someone pushed hard into Eric from behind. We'd started to wander back in the direction of the hotel. The street had been quiet, not that I was paying more than cursory attention to anything but him. I looked up and he turned around. There were three young men standing just behind us and two of them had knives, held down, flanking the third who spoke. He lifted the hem of his t-shirt to reveal a gun tucked into the front of his pants. He didn't draw it, but the threat was plain. He let his shirt fall as he took a step forward. Eric didn't turn to look at me when his arm snaked down my front and he pushed me firmly back behind him. His gaze was locked on the speaker.
"Give us your wallets," the mugger ordered.
Eric glanced back and forth between the three before nodding. He lifted his hands up carefully and told them he was taking out his wallet. He did, and he opened it wide to show them, moving very deliberately. He took out all the cash he had without looking down and held it out.
"I'm keeping my wallet," he stated. "This is all the money I have."
"Hers too," one of the knife-wielders chimed in.
I was shaking as the boy addressed me. I was sure Eric could feel it, but he kept his eyes on the leader, who reached out and took his proffered money. "Hers too," he confirmed, as he did.
"Sookie give them your money."
Hands trembling I pulled open my little wristlet, and then my wallet, and I held up all the money I had. The chimer-in snatched it away from me and stepped back.
"Count to a hundred," their leader said, and the three took off.
I still had my hand outstretched to offer my money when Eric turned around and pulled me to him. His arms went around me, and he tucked me under his chin. I could feel his head moving from side to side watching the street now, though of course we were probably safer in this moment than we'd been all evening. Those guys would not have robbed us if there was anyone else around. When he started to shush me I realized I was sobbing. He didn't release me from his hold as he fished out another handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me, pressing my fingers closed around it. After a few more moments he asked if I was okay to walk. I nodded that I was, and he lead me quickly down the road. It was a short walk back to the hotel, made quicker by his pace. This time I didn't mind it at all.
Stuart was on the desk as we came in the lobby and seeing the state of me, coupled with the way Eric continued to clutch me too him, it was apparent that something was amiss. My mascara was probably running all over. I was fairly unconcerned about that just now.
"Is everything alright sir?" Stuart asked Eric as he moved us toward the elevators.
"Miss Stackhouse and I were just mugged coming over Canal Street," Eric replies succinctly.
Stuart is visibly startled, and begins to ask Eric if he should summon the police. With another measuring look down at me he inclines his head. "Alright," he confirms. "I'm taking Miss Stackhouse upstairs now. Bring them up to her suite when they arrive."
The night manager nods his head again and hastens to his task while Eric brings me upstairs and to my room. He's fished the key card out of my little purse and zipped it shut again, since I hadn't, after handing over my money. Once inside he leads into the powder room and begins to dampen a towel before I finally come to. I take it from him and quickly wipe at my eyes until I'm no longer streaked with Revlon, and turn to him and throw my arms around him in a very tight hug.
"Eric, oh my god," I breathe. It's the first thing I have said.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"Yes," I answer. I'm obviously still shaky. "Just...terrified. Eric, oh my god," I say again.
"I know. That's never happened to me before," he says.
"Me neither," I agree.
I don't bother with anything more than a perfunctory sorting of myself in the mirror. I'm splotchy and I need to properly wash my face, but that can wait, since he's still standing right here. We've just done a trade off for freakouts, I think, as he's now gone quiet. I lead him to the couch and we sit down. I take his hand in my lap and hold on to it with both of mine, and he simply lets me. We sit in quiet for twenty minutes until there is a knock on the door. This is pretty quick, it seems to me, especially for a Friday night. I get up and answer the door. Eric is still unresponsive, but it's my room anyway. I thank Stuart, who is there with two detectives. I assure him that I am fine when he asks. He wants me to let him know if there's anything else we need tonight, and then excuses himself as I invite the detectives inside.
I lead them through to the living room and one of the men turns to me to verify, "Sookie Stackhouse?" I nod. He turns back to Eric who has stood up. "And Eric Northman?" the detective continues.
"Yes," confirms Eric.
"I am Detective Bellefleur, and this is Detective Beck." Eric shakes hands with both men, and I do the same.
They invite us to sit back down, and Detective Bellefleur does as well. Detective Beck makes a brief sweep of the room, glancing back into the bedroom as well. I suppose that's routine. He remains standing as our interview begins. We recount the mugging to the two officers and Eric is able to give a very thorough description of the boys who robbed us. The only thing that I was able to supply is that nearest to me had on a white t-shirt, and both he and the third had knives, which caught Eric by surprise, as he apparently hadn't noticed that at all. Presumably he had been too distracted by the gun. It could have been the angle as well. We hadn't lost any property but for the money, which had been a total of forty-seven dollars for me, and three hundred or so, from Eric, he wasn't certain.
They asked us where we had been this evening and who we had been with, if we'd noticed anything strange earlier. We had nothing revelatory to add here. Then they began asking Eric how long he had been in town, if he was a frequent guest here, if he was certain he'd never seen the boys before. I realized at some point during this line of questioning that they were trying to determine if there was any indication that Eric had been targeted for being Eric. I suppose he was something slightly greater than the average citizen or tourist. I guess that explained their prompt appearance. In the end, they congratulated him on having the sense of mind to keep our wallets and just give them the cash they demanded. And the award for best performance under pressure during an armed robbery goes to Eric Northman, ladies and gentleman. They said that since we had no property to really recover, we probably wouldn't be hearing from them again unless they happened to apprehend our muggers. They apologized that it was unlikely, but thanked us for filing the report, and they left.
After I showed them out I went and sat back next to him again. "They were right, you know, I can't believe how calm you handled that," I offered.
"You did well too," he says. "That could have been so much worse."
"I'm beginning to feel like I'm bad luck," I say. I'm only sort of kidding.
He hugged his arm around me for a moment before giving me a little nudge to get up. "Go take a shower," he says.
"Are you going?" I ask. He shakes his head.
I retreat to the bathroom and make quick work of washing up, only turning on one of the facets and not lingering. I dried and changed into a t-shirt and my little pink shorts again. I don't have any other bed clothes. "I need one too, come on," he says. He grabs my hand and then grabs my little purse on our way out. I guess I'm sleeping over at Eric's then.
We don't really have a lot to say, so when he leads me into his room upstairs, I just get in bed while he goes off to shower. A short while later he climbs in behind me and pulls me back into him. He's still a little damp, but warm, and I don't find myself minding. I snuggle back against him and I don't say anything about the fact that he's basically cupping my breast. It's not a sexual gesture, it's comforting for both of us.
"I don't think I'm very good at dating you," he murmurs into my hair.
"Mm," I agree sleepily. "I came out better with scuffed shoes and ice cream up my nose."
I feel him smile. "I was doing pretty well up until the part with the gun," he says.
"That you were," I agree. He kisses the top of my head and we lay there in silence for a long while. I sensed him fall asleep before I did, but I wasn't long behind.
He wasn't with me when I woke up in the morning, but I heard him in the bathroom again so I figured he hadn't been up for long. I find myself feeling a lot better than I had before I went to sleep. I stretch and snuggle back down in the covers, then stretch some more. "Good morning!" I call out. This is his place, he should know to expect me wakeful when he comes out of there.
"Morning," I hear him say, muffled. He appears a moment later still in his sleep pants and tee. He climbs back into bed and pulls me in to him again. "How're you feeling?" he asks.
"Considerably better," I answer. "You?"
"Same here. It's a bit surreal, since there was no harm done."
"Yeah," I nod, stellar conversationalist that I am.
"So what are we doing today?" he asks.
"Eric, you don't have to tend to me all weekend. You can do your normal thing and I'll just find something to keep me entertained."
"Sookie, I'm having a hard time understanding why I have to convince a woman currently lying in my bed that I am interested in spending time with her."
"Ah." I suppose he may have a point.
"And as for tending to you," he says, and starts to rub my arm a bit, "I'm happy to, which I think I've also made clear."
"Ah," I say again. Well, there's that. I'm not sure if he means tending to me generally, or tending to my sexual needs right now. I figure it's probably a bit of both. I'm also not sure if he's completely serious on the second part, or if he's teasing me, but I figure that's also a bit of both. I've probably been silent now for too awkward a length of time, so I glance up at him. He's watching me with an amused expression, and then lifts his hand to my cheek and drops his thumb to my lower lip, pulling it from between my teeth where I had been biting it in my perplexity.
He traces across my lips again before leaning in to give me a long, slow kiss. When he breaks, I feel a bit dazed, and find myself just staring up at him. His eyes are really blue, and his hair has fallen forward a bit, and is tickling my cheeks. He smirks at me and shifts himself to move away and I sort of whimper involuntarily because I don't really want him to even if I'm not ready to just say so. Instead I raise my own hand to his neck and I pull him back to me and kiss him hotly this time so in fact it should crystal clear that whatever is happening here, it's not just him. We carry on like that, and my lips part with his, my hand at his neck creeps back so my fingertips are spread into his hair at the roots. He is cradling my head in one crooked arm and brushing up and down my side with the other, catching the hem of my shirt a little more on each pass. It's sweet and it's almost tentative, until he dips under the cotton and slides his palm up my torso, his fingers spreading to wrap around my ribs just beneath my breast. It's firm and possessive and hot as Hades.
He pulls away from me then to take me in and I see that same haze of lust in his eyes, knowing he's probably seeing it mirrored in mine. I nod at him, a tiny dip of my head. I watch him. I want him, and even if it could be a mistake, I don't care. He pulls his shirt off and lifts me to lift mine and his lips are back on mine, across my jaw, down my neck, across my clavicle. He cups my breast again, lifting it to his lips and I sigh. I shift my knee up to rest against his hip, my fingers brushing up his arm, across his back, along his shoulders and then across his cheek and through his hair as I press him toward me, arching upward.
He moves with me, rolling between my legs, switching sides, his hand running up my thigh. I want his mouth and pull him back to me and he takes care to grind himself against me as he lets himself be pulled. I clutch his shoulder and slide my palm across his chest. My fingertips brush across his nipples, circling, scraping, pinching. He groans into my mouth as he deepens his kiss. He likes that. His hand is back between my legs running up and down, pressing, pushing my warmth and my wetness back against me. He pulls away, and my head falls back. His hands are on my hips and I lift and he slides them up, and I pull my legs up and up until my shorts are off and they fall astride him again. He looks down at me, taking me in, appreciating as his eyes roam. I don't care to wait for him, I sit up, and he pulls back just long enough to shed himself of the last of his clothes before he's meeting me, holding me to him and my hand slinks down between us. I find him stiff and broad and taking him in hand I stroke. He moans against my neck, sucking, biting, and I moan too.
He lowers me to the bed again. His fingers stroke my lips, delving deeper, testing, learning me. I shiver as he finds my clit, brushing, pressing, circling. He doesn't stop, and his mouth is at my nipple, tongue swirling and teeth grazing. Two fingers dip and enter me, "Eric," I breathe, lost for anything else. I clench around him, seizing when I come, arching up, unbreathing, seeing violet as I cry out from abyss. I fall shuddering when I return and find his eyes on me and then his mouth on mine as he pushes into me. He fills me again and again with steady force, pulling me up to meet him. Soon, he doesn't need to as I find myself enough to move with him and he moans with my efforts. I reach between us to keep us apace, stroking myself and him, whenever he withdraws. When I start to crest again he groans with me, and as I shudder all around him he pulls out then pulls me to him and I feel the hot splash of his pleasure erupt between us on my belly.
He falls back taking me with him against the pillows and I can hear his heart from here. He presses his lips to my temple and leaves them there. We doze off as we come down. I'm the first to wake but find that I don't want to leave here. I run my hand lightly across his chest until he's roused. I feel him stir, but I don't know what to say to him. Thank you? Good as promised? "Hello," is what I settle for.
"Hello," he agrees.
I hide my face in his neck, all shyness. "I wasn't really expecting that," I whisper.
"Expect is not the right word, no," he says, musing. He's tracing his fingers up and down my spine.
"I'm almost afraid to ask," I say.
"Mm. Hope for maybe. Fantasize, definitely."
"That good, huh?" I grin.
"You were there," he replies.
We got up to shower together a little bit later and I hurried past the mirror, cringing at the state of myself. He had the same one up here that I had downstairs. As it turns out I liked his even better than mine.
I sneaked back to my room after that to get dressed. We decided to help the concierge self-actualize by finding us something to do for the rest of the day. I was grinning like a fool as I tried to fix my hair and put on a bit of makeup. Maybe that's what I was. I think only time would tell on that one. For today at least, I was going to be quite content. He met me at my door with a matching grin and a steamy kiss. I suppose he was feeling the same.